While the same age as all of his classmates, Makoto Kurita is perhaps the youngest in heart and spirit of class 5-3. At the start of the series, this bowl-haired boy finds himself the most emotional of the students, running and screaming away from any scary phenomenon. But with Nube's guidance and the assistance of his friends, he slowly learns to face his fears and grow up in certain ways. One of Makoto's greatest strengths is his kind and friendly nature, allowing him to try and remain cheerful in the face of both human and youkai threats; however, he remains the most childlike of Nube's students, both in stature (though he is small, he is constantly hoping for the day he will "grow up") and his love of kiddy past-times like keeping pets or watching sentai series. (His most favorite being Chou Kiken Sentai Kakukaku Ranger which is a slight parody in name of the series Ninja Sentai Kaku Ranger, but translates as Extremely Dangerous Sentai Nuclear Ranger.) While he also receives horrible grades like Hiroshi and Katsuya, he actually puts in effort to try to improve himself in any way possible. His name and the model for his character design are both inspired from the Kazuo Umezu manga series Makoto-chan.